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Iris Online New eyes for old worlds

Reinventing the past in the future

Think of science fiction and the Classics, and the first thing you think of may be 2008’s Doctor Who episode set in Pompeii. That was a delight for anyone wondering why the Doctor hadn’t visited ...

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Hairy comets and their inhabitants, or why we should all read Lucian.

‘I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat’ – Winston Churchill. How about Homer as an honour, and Lucian as a ...

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Civitas Smith - Iris meets Joan Smith.

Although similar in many ways; unlike Bustopher Jones, this particular cat is rarely seen in such distinguished places as Mayfair but today, when there is spring in Pall Mall, we are off to the Royal ...

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Cry me a river: watery fates in Ovid's Metamorphoses

Ovid's Metamorphoses is a poem about change on every level imaginable. So many different changes occur that people have long tried to find patterns in them and reasons that might explain why Ovid ...

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Interviews

(Not Quite) Thoroughly Modern Martha.

The clock struck thirteen as I stormed the ominous portals under the battlements of the British...

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A chat with Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye

In the midst of the apocalyptic storms that March had sent to whirl around the streets of London,...

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A Day in the Life of a Classicist

Classics is immensely transferable as a subject, and its students go on to almost every walk of...

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Travel

Great Cities of the Roman Empire - Tarragona, Spain

Welcome to Colonia Julia Urbs Triumphalis Tarraco. Better known to us today as Tarragona, it is...

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Samothrace - Moving to a remote Greek island

The 180 km squared Greek island of Samothrace in the North Aegean is dominated by the 1600 metre...

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Dougga By Day

Tunisia, a richly historical land at present under-going a (one hopes, short) period of political...

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Great Cities of the Roman Empire - Nîmes

Le Midi is the name the French have given to the beautiful, southern region of their country and if...

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When in Rome use the underground

It isn’t surprising that Rome’s Underground/Metro system is smaller than that of London’s - after...

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Bacchus in France

Philippa Williams searches for the god of wine in Aquitaine.

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